Say Anything Blog

Yesterday I did a story about Grand Forks Herald’s outrageous smearing of UND benefactor Ralph Englestad.  In a nutshell, Grand Forks Herald Employee Tu Uyen Tran ran a story about how someone has a few flyers out on the reservation that he made a racial slur. 

The Tran printed the only facts in the story; that there were no verifiable basis in the claim, at the bottom of the story.  He knew darn well that 90% plus of the readers will remember the accusation on the front page and maybe never will read to the buried facts of the story.  This story also was published in the Fargo Forum (online edition at least).  All the better to spread the smear.

This was an intentional smear of a person who’s no longer around to defend himself.  What the heck, he only gave the community and University over an hundred million dollars so why shouldn’t the Herald smear him because they want to do away with the Sioux name?

Now on his blog, Tran wonders if the hateful smear he spread will have any repercussions?

Now that I think about it, I wonder if the infamous flier we all got worked up about didn’t cause a serious backlash in the non-Indian community outside the reservation. And because all communities have their share of hateful idiots and hateful idiots tend to be loud, it’s possible that Spirit Lake voters will be hearing a whole lot of racist comments that they wouldn’t otherwise have heard, causing them to vote against the referendum.

Isn’t that funny?  Tran spreads the hate and now wonders if there will be repercussions over the hateful smear that he spread around?  Was this Tran’s idea all along?  Did he want to fan the flames of racial discord?

Sure sounds like it.  Hateful idiots indeed.

This isn’t the first example of biased reporting committed by the Herald in the run up to the election.  The Herald has been faithfully reporting accusations by the anti-nickname crowd that they are only countering the millions being spent by the nickname supporters.

“Our ancestors faced overwhelming odds throughout their lives; we suffered all kinds of indignities…. Now, we’re facing a foundation with millions and millions of dollars and they’re coming on the reservation to cause all this turmoil. All we’re doing is fighting back.”

You can’t prove a negative.  That means that in no way will the Englestad friends or family be able to prove that something was not said.  That’s what makes that so despicable that the Herald gave it exposure to tens of thousands of people.

But spending money has consequences.  The Herald faithfully prints the accusations that all of this money is being spent to influence the vote.  But if that were the case wouldn’t there be evidence.  You don’t spend money to influence an election without leaving trails, like millions and millions of dollars of advertising or signs or whatever.

The Herald reprints the accusation but never follows up and asks to see evidence of money being spent.  All they do is give short shrift to the pro-nickname side when they deny that they’ve got the money.  In fact they sound fairly upset about the biased Herald coverage.

DEVILS LAKE — It is with regret that I feel I must write this letter to the editor. A recent Herald story and the blog of Herald staff writer Tu-Uyen Tran seemed to question my honesty (“The nickname, the tribes and the Ralph,” Page A1, April 11)...

Tran repeated other people’s claims in his story and blog that we have received funds from the Ralph Engelstad Arena. Not once has our committee ever asked for or received any such funding. Our only request was to hang the flags from both the Spirit Lake and Standing Rock reservations in the arena.

Why is the Herald printing smears and accusation that are unfounded?  It’s because they are on a moral crusade to remove the name no matter how far they have to go.